Then for sufficiently large \(k\)  the rank \(r_f\)  of \(H\)  equals the total polar degree of the finite poles, i.e., the sum of the degrees of the denominators in the Smith-McMillan form of \(R_{sp}(\lambda )\)  [1]}. We assume in the sequel that we are taking such a sufficiently large \(k\) . The general theory for Hankel based realizations of proper rational matrices in [2]}, implies that the following Rosenbrock linear system matrix in Theorem  is a strongly minimal linearization for the strictly proper rational matrix \(R_{sp}(\lambda )\) .
